Take 7 - Writer and showrunner Matthew Federman, Jericho, Blood and Treasure

SPEAKER_03 1:25

Thank you. This is a little known that my podcast partner Daniel Rustin has had so many failures that the term being in a rut is actually named after him. I'd like to turn our attention to our the amazing guest we have this week. His name is Matthew Federman. He's a journey-man TV writer and uh producer and showrunner who's been in the industry for uh a long time and has been on such shows as Jericho, Warehouse 13, Human Target, Charlie Daniels, Limitless, and most recently, he is the co-creator and showrunner of the CBS show Blood and Treasure. Welcome, Matt.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Hello, thanks for having me. So Noah's just read out some of your credits, and they're not unimpressive. And yet you've still chosen to come on a podcast about rejection and failure. Um, and you've listened to other episodes. So why are you here, Matt?

SPEAKER_04 2:22

I uh it's funny because um, you know, there I I don't remember what they call it, the hope machine or whatever, uh, on Twitter when they talk about the way uh professional, some professional writers or or writing gurus try to sell people on the um the the magic of Hollywood and just keep plugging away and you'll get there and all that kind of stuff. Um a certain amount of that determination is good, but I do think there's a certain amount of it that's like no matter what no matter what level of success you've had, you will um, you know, you you will have like moments where you regret having ever come out here uh and having ever set foot on this uh on this journey. And so I think that it's it's a good thing that you guys are doing a podcast that's not focused on just the success part, but focused on the getting knocked down and getting back up, because that's actually more of your career than the successes.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

So you just said that there are moments where you think, what am I doing here? Have you had moments like that?

SPEAKER_04 3:21

I have, but they're short because I don't have any other abilities. So um, and I kind of I identified them myself like very early on. I was like, Well, you're really not good at anything, are you? Um, and then at some point I I came to writing and I was like, oh, this is weirdly, this makes sense for me because all the things that I'm kind of good at are all involved in this one thing. So this is probably what I should be doing. Um, and from that point on, I never I never really questioned it. There's times where I think about questioning it, and then I think about, well, what would you be doing otherwise? And I and I came to the industry um old enough, like I moved out to LA when I was 25 and you know, started PA ing at 25. So I I had already done other jobs and stuff, and I was like, uh, you know, I I could I could be miserable in a lot of walks of life. Um there's uh you know, it's there's no real magical place for me to be. And this has my best shot at at finding happiness and fulfillment. Um, so when you know, when you have the dark night of the soul, um, it is helpful to look over where the grass is supposed to be greener and to see that that grass is on fire. And you're like, okay, well, I might as well just keep plugging away where I am, and that's that's pretty much my life.

SPEAKER_03 4:40

Speaking of the dark night of the soul, I want to do something, a fun exercise. This is a question we haven't asked before, but uh since you've listened to other uh other episodes of our podcast, normally when you go to a general meeting, you're kind of giving people like the 15 or 10 minute version of your career. And normally you're kind of giving them the greatest hits. Let's flip that on its head. You wanted to talk about your career through notable failures starting from the beginning. You don't have to do the whole thing, but what would be some notable failures along the way that tell your story?

SPEAKER_04 5:11

The thing is, we we always we were always pretty good at the meeting side of things because there's a I think there's an energy that you create when there's two of you that it's it's a real benefit to a writing team that you can kind of bounce off each other. The the thing that we realized, the mistake that we were making, especially in the first couple of years, we had um we had met as writers on the West Wing, and no, no, we've met as PAs on the West Wing, and we had started writing together with a West Wing spec. And so the West Wing spec was what was kind of opening doors for us, and the start, and at that point in our career, every meeting started with like, so you guys worked at uh you know worked at the West Wing. What was that like? And we would have a really fun meeting talking about something that had like nothing to do with our writing. And I think we we started realizing at a certain point we're we're making them laugh and we're giving them a good story, but we're not actually making ourselves a part of our own story. We're talking about someone else's creation. And we knew that we were starting to get somewhere when the meeting started shifting to being just about us. Like the West Wings thing was an interesting thing, trivia that would last a minute, and then we would shift into what we're doing. Um, and so I think the first big thing we learned was to um that a meeting is not a meeting is the the appearance of a conversation. It's like the simulation of a conversation, um, but just the way like dialogue in a script is meant to sound like the way people talk. But if you actually capture the way people have conversations, it would be unwatchable. Like it has to be boiled down, it has to be directed in a certain way. Um, a meeting is the same way, and you should be directing the meeting, even if even from the back seat, you should be directing it. Um and that means like your answers are going towards, and here is why I'm here in your office and why you should be thinking of hiring me. You know, every everything should be going in that direction. And if you're telling the funniest story in the world, that every time you tell that story, it just leads to a half hour long digression that doesn't end up leading to you getting any kind of jobs. Like my my writing partner and I would we would do like a post-mortem after every meeting, and eventually we'd be like, we should stop talking about that thing because people really enjoy hearing it, but it's actually sending them in the wrong direction for the meeting we're trying to have. So let's not give that, give that to them anymore. Um, and so to me, it's like that's the that's the thing that we learned was like always uh, are you getting out of the meetings what you are what you are intending to get out of them? Because they're happy to just have a an interesting meeting sometimes and have a and have a fun time. And we could do that, but is it actually converting into something? Um and then the thing that we learned from our agent was that the place where we were having trouble on staff lots of times was that we were um we were so driven to try to make the show the best show it could be, that that was often like we the static we were getting was but that's you're you're like you're getting out out and kind of in front of your headlights because depending on your show runners, some showrunners would like loved us because they loved that we were story engines and and we would always be pushing, you know, pushing things forward. And some of them were kind of like they could chill out a little bit. Um and so it it really started becoming like, okay, every time you're going into a new situation, you have to real you have to really think what does this person want from from me and how do I help them make their show? Um and that's what when we started realizing like how to like apply what we do to the thing that's being asked of us, then that's when things started, you know, really coming together.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

It was interesting what you were saying about sort of the mistakes you were making as a junior writer around not telling your story very well. Now that you're a grown-up and you're you know you're a showrunner, you're hiring other people, when you're looking at staffing, if you bring someone in for a meeting and they make the mistake junior you did and start telling funny stories to try and become your friend rather than actually doing what they're meant to do. Do you sort of say, hey, stop telling me funny stories, you know, tell me why I should hire you, or do you just let them roll around making the mistake that you did?

SPEAKER_04 9:30

I I try to, I don't necessarily give them like the meta commentary because it doesn't feel like it's my place to do that. I will try to I will try to recensor them. Um, and if I feel like um, especially in some in some hiring meetings, it can be me, my writing partner, a producer, there might be like four or five people there. So it can sometimes be very intimidating to be that other person. And sometimes, you know, the producers that that's there with you, they just start going off about some kind of thing, and they kind of like just they a little bit derail this person's meeting. And I will try to take the momentum back and actively give it to that person. Um, so they're not like because the thing I'm not hiring is I'm not hiring like how good are you at forcing yourself into a conversation. I'm trying to hire you for like your storytelling sense, your personality, and and how you'll fit in a room. A certain amount of that is being able to fit yourself into a conversation, but it's a lot to ask of somebody, especially if they're lower level, to like force their way into a conversation that five people are having. So I will kind of try to like settle everybody down and then ask them pointed questions to try to bring them if they need to be brought out of their shell. I think it's my job to bring them out of their shell a little bit. Um, because that's on staff, that is part of what I see my job to do as showrunner is I feel like I'm uh the conductor of an orchestra, and I am trying to like, oh, I'm not hearing enough from the violin. Let me let's bring more of the violin into this. Okay, it's a little too much for the percussion. Let's bring that down a little bit, you know. And I'm I'm trying to bring out the best of everybody and get a uh something that sounds like a tune that we're all playing together. And you know, some people you can you can direct them in a meeting and you see how quickly they are to take a note. You know, if I say, um, if I ask a question and they give me an answer that I feel is a little generic, I might ask again to try to get them to dig deeper, like, okay, but more specifically, like with you, where did you, you know, I mean, and and I'm trying to get them to go somewhere. And sometimes you see them, you see their brain do the maneuver and something clicks into place, and then they give me exactly what I'm asking for. And I'm like, ah, good. Like, you're able to actually on the fly understand what's what I'm asking of and give me that. And some people you try to do that, and they just kind of give you a different version of the same thing they just said. And I'm like, okay, that's fine, you know, that's fine, but you're probably not going to work out for what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

So as a non-entertainment person, you know, the industries that I've been in, in journalism and business and diplomacy, interviews are very linear. You know, it's quite a good process. You know, everyone sort of knows the game that you play, and people, you know, the panels are quite small and people are interviewed fairly and properly. And I feel like it sort of works. Is there a process problem in your world with hiring where it's uh you might be a great writer, but you're not good in meetings? And because of the slightly weird way that people are hired with multiple people who aren't particularly good at hiring, maybe, that actually things don't spot into place in the way that they should. Is there a system problem with hiring in in the world of Hollywood?

SPEAKER_04 12:51

I think there is, but I don't know what the solution is. Um and I've thought a lot about it. Um, because you know, as we all talk about, like it's it's systemic from day one that we what we ask of for you to be good as a PA is not what makes you good as a writer's assistant. What we may ask you to be as a writer's assistant is not necessarily what makes you good as a writer. Um and yet we ask people to go through that process. If you if you know, if you're not coming in from some other direction, but that I came in through the assistant direction. So at every level, things are being asked of you that is not actually what's going to get you, it is not actually the talents that are required of you to do the job you came to do. Um and so in meetings, it's a it's another example where the job is not a job of meetings, it's a job of writing, but the there is more overlap for television, I think, because so much of television is about being in a room with other people and having productive conversations. And if you're someone who in a in a meeting is completely unable to give the best of yourself, that it it does not speak well for how you're gonna do in a staff. You know what I mean? Like that's I think that's a pretty big red flag. But um the thing I'm looking for then is how much of this is just jitters. You know what I mean? Like that in a normal situation, you'd be fine and a very productive member of staff and you're just nervous. You're either nervous because you're doing this for the first time, you're nervous because you really need the gig, you're nervous because you're excited about this, you know, the potential of this job in particular. And I want to then try to get you into the best place possible for you to be your own best advocate. Um, because I don't want someone to not get a job because they were nervous on a given day, and yet they would have been great on your staff. You know what I mean? So to me, that the whole process is like it takes a little more effort for everyone involved, but you really are trying to like read the tea leaves of not just how good was this person in this moment, but what am I gonna need for them in the future? And how do I ensure that I'm not letting um you know, they there's sometimes where a meeting starts and like traffic was just like hellacious, even for LA on a given day. And and they're they're they're like a half hour late, they're completely flustered, they already feel like they've blown it. And you know, they are not great at the beginning of the meeting because it's like they're completely in their head and they're like, I screwed this up. But I don't want them to I want to like get them out of that because I could just say, listen, it's sink or swim and they sank. But I but I'm like, I really want to find out is there a great writer here that we should be hiring.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

That story just gave me a little bit of PTSD because I one of my very first order meetings, I was uh I gave myself an hour and 45 minutes to get there, and I was still 30 minutes late, uh, just had to go across town. And I and I was exactly what you were saying. I was flustered and I was horrified, and I gave a terrible meeting, and I ultimately didn't get the job. And I always think about going like, why didn't I leave three hours early? Why didn't I leave two hours? That's one of those things that just echoes in your head and and and see what's great about it. And it really is all my own you know neurosities involved. When do you think you know on your shows that you've run when a show is beginning to go bad, a room is beginning to go bad, because you're talking about sort of rejection and failure and sort of overcoming that. What do you do to start to write the shift? Do you have one-on-one meetings with people? Do you just kind of let the word get around? Like how do you everyone have staff, I've done that stuff, you're all hyper focused on doing the best job that you can, but sometimes that leads to a little bit of over-eagerness, other things where you're maybe overcompensating, and some adjustments need to be made. Are you kind of the guy who's always fiddling with the symphony? Do you have strategies to kind of keep the room sort of symbiotic and and humming uh and being sort of symphonic uh and harmonious, or you sort of let it go?

SPEAKER_04 16:49

Um, I I mean, I to me letting it go is is um is dereliction of duty. You know what I mean? Like your job is to make the thing run and run well and get the best out of people. Um I we've gotten more proactive. This this is the first show that we've run, and you know, it's been two seasons, and and every every uh from being a PA on, we have learned something every single step of the way, every single show. A lot of it is learning what not to do, but you know, it's like we're always kind of trying to tinker with our own engine and just do the best version of what we can do, you know, that we can do. So in the first season, it's like the staff was was a great staff. Um, there was a few points of friction. Um, there was a moment where it was kind of like, okay, it's it's I'm out of the room because I'm writing like the first, you know, episode or two. Like we, you know, we had the pilot, and then we wrote the next one after that. And I was out of the room either doing a rewrite or something, and I was starting to get the sense of like, okay, there's a lot of friction in the room. And and and every time I was coming into the room, they weren't getting anywhere. And so I was I said um to to my party Steve, okay, I'm gonna take a couple days in the room. So uh, you know, it's like you're not gonna get the pages you're expecting to get, because I need to I need to like write this ship here. Um, and a lot of it was about like let's let's take some time. First of all, you're all good, smart people. Like we don't hire a holes. So if you're here, you're a good person. Um and let's just kind of like talk it out. And I and I wanted to kind of talk through some of the bigger picture stuff for the show, some of the stuff that we have figured out by this point, because your staff wasn't there for the development process. So they're they're coming into a thing that's already moving, um, and they don't know the blind alleys you've already gone down and everything. And um I took like an hour and I just kind of talked out loud about here's the show, here's the way we think about the show, here's what we've learned, here's how I think as a storyteller, here's how Steve thinks, here, you know, and I and I tried to just kind of give everybody the target that we're all aiming at together. Um, because a lot of what happens is when you're not in the room, everyone starts to see different targets, and they think they're all aiming at the target, but they're not. Um and so, you know, you end up having kind of like uh fractures that form along personality lines and visions of the show and all that kind of stuff. And so when you see that happen, you know, you can go in and kind of settle everything down and just reassert this is what we're doing, this is like a pitch that works like this, you know, and I might I might take someone's pitch that I thought really worked and then break down here's why I think this pitch really worked. It hit this, it hit this, it hit this, you know. Um the second season, we we started actually kind of proactively bringing people in to talk to them like after just a few weeks, like at long enough where it was okay, you you get the show now and we get your personality. Like the the first day jitters are gone. We are now kind of like looking like the staff we're gonna look like the rest of the season. So we wanted to meet with everybody individually and just give them a progress report of here's how we think you're doing. Uh we get and it was mostly very positive. The thing I said to the most people was uh we could hear we could hear more from you. Because I thought that some people were being um they were being a little too shy. And I think they had heard so much about like a staff writer's to be seen and not heard. And you know, we've tried to make it clear, but I made it clear again to them like that's not the that's not the room that we like to run. We like to run best idea wins. Um, and you are having a lot of great ideas, and I whenever you swing at a pitch, you tend to hit it. So I'd like to see you swinging a little bit more. Um and you know, to just give them permission to put themselves out there more. Um, and then there was a couple people that I that we needed to kind of pull back and say, we're hearing from you a lot, and there's a lot of great stuff in there, but it is it is sometimes coming at the cost of being able to hear everybody more. And so I would say like some ideas, let let yourself sit with the idea a little bit while people are talking, maybe write it down so you don't forget it. Like, think is this as good an idea five minutes later as I thought it was the first time I thought of it? You know what I mean? Like, because some people are more the shotgun, they just keep reloading and firing and they're just like spreading buckshot everywhere, and like, yes, some of it's gonna hit, but a lot of it is just like strafing the PA. Um, so you know, I I want to just kind of like try to get everybody into a place of like you can feel good that you're here, you can relax of the things that we think that you know, that we appreciate about you. We could see more of these things, and then maybe a little bit less of this part because it's getting in the way of all these other things that we really do appreciate. Um and you know, it's it's just about like it I think it is somewhat uh about managing people's emotions as much as because we are emotional beings and our tool is coming from a place of emotion first. And so if people are freaked out about their job and if they're scared, you're not gonna get the best out of them anyway. So I do want people to first like, don't be nervous. You're here because you're awesome. Okay, this is the this is the thing you're most awesome at. Let's see more of that.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

That's so great to hear. I mean, we're obviously we we're a podcast about failure, but we're also a podcast about overcoming failure and setting people up for success. And I've been on so many shows that you know, communication doesn't always go to that level of detail where you're all where you're knowing kind of how you're doing in the room. And it must be because you're always wondering, I mean if you remember being a lower level, mid-level, you're always kind of wondering how your performance adds up and are you talking too much, are you talking too little? You have this kind of monologue going on in your head. And just to be told do we need to calibrate left or right, I think it must have been so uh rewarding and reassuring to the staff. So that was that was just like some color commentary because I was like, oh man, that must be great to hear, even though it must be very stressful to hear at the time that you might be a little bit to the left or a little bit to the right, ultimately it's keeping the staff in a really good place.

SPEAKER_04 22:56

Well, like I said, everything we've learned, we've learned from people who did it right, and then more often from people who did it wrong. And I think that the the problem I've had when a show has not worked and when it was a bad experience, the lack of communication was largely forefront in that problem. And you end up having a staff of people that are all uh at whatever level you're at, you can be insecure. And there's this like uh vacuum of uh direction, and no one knows if anyone's doing it. It seems like we're all doing the job badly. No one knows how to do it well, and that's when the staff starts to kind of tear itself apart because it starts to fractionalize and like, well, no, it must be my way of doing it, because that's the what what you know everyone goes to their place of comfort, which is their natural instinct. Um, but when we our first job on judging Amy was really valuable to our career because it ended up being taken over by a woman named Carol Barbie, and she is the person who I always credit for, like, so much of what we learned how to do the job well came from Carol. And at some point early on in that season, we there was some there was a pitch or something, and we said something inelegant in the room. And it was like the moment it happened, it was like, okay, that was not good. And then um, and a lot of people would have just kind of let it go, they would have marked it down in their book in their, you know, mentally, and then they would you would have known you messed up maybe, but you know, you wouldn't have been told. And or maybe you didn't know you messed up, which is even worse. And she kind of like on a break, she said, Hey, let's let's talk in your guys' office. And she brought us to the office and she said, Hey, so uh this thing, yeah, don't do that. Like, you guys are great, you're doing everything great. Just like just you be careful about this kind of thing. Like, you know, you're like you're you're talking to people that have been doing this a lot longer than you have. You know what I mean? Like, I know that you respect them, but it in that moment it didn't sound like you did.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

What was the thing? Can you say?

SPEAKER_04 24:54

Uh I mean it was a long time ago, but it was something, it was something along the lines of um an idea that okay, in every room has a version of this, of this kind of thing, which is either first thought theater or like uh that's too easy. It's like it was it was of that category of thought of like that pitch is is on the right track, but it's maybe the 1.0 version, and we could be doing something better than that. I think the word that was used was remedial. Um and that was not a positive way of of saying that. Um and and she was absolutely right to call us out on it. Um and it was one of those, like, okay, good, that's a great thing to learn from. Then she ended up uh running Jericho and she brought us back again. And then, you know, we didn't have to have that conversation with her again because we had already learned. She was just one of those people who was like, if she could tell you whatever was going on, she always would. She wasn't holding back information just because she she could, you know, she had the information to hold. Her default setting was let me communicate with everybody. Um, and so you know, we took that to the show, and then whenever there was like a casting thing or whatever, like I don't want this the writers to learn out learn about something in deadline. You know what I mean? Like, you're on the show, you work on the show, you should be hearing from us weeks ahead of when the world is learning from about things. But I worked on shows where I did not know what was happening until it was in the trade, you know? So we just kind of learned so much about how like you don't want stuff turning on themselves, you don't want people getting into their own head, you don't want people diving into their own insecurities. You want to just get the best from everyone. That's when people do their best work. So we kind of know as a species, it's like it's communication, it's respect, it's like all that stuff. It's like we don't need to reinvent the wheel here, we just need to apply it, you know. Um, and I do it because I think it's the right thing to do, and and I don't want to ever the feeling I've had sitting in that room knowing or not knowing how the showrunner felt and just feeling twisted on the inside. I never want to have anyone else have that feeling if I can stop it. But even if I didn't care about that, I would still think it's best for the show. You know what I mean? So to me, it's it's enlightened self-interest to just communicate with everyone, be respectful, let people know if you can get something more out of them, because you will be surprised sometimes that people are able to redirect. And and I've also been on shows where um when I was at the higher levels and I was starting to be included in those discussions about writers, and this thought about a writer was like they had kind of I don't want to say pulled the ripcord on, but they they had kind of given up on a certain writer, and they're like, I don't know, I don't I saw they're not they're not really bringing anything. Like they had that person was a dead person walking on the sand. And but I was like, but you've never actually said to them, here's what I expect from you. So they don't know, they're like a blind person swinging around their arms wildly in a room right now. Um, and I was like, I'm never gonna be that person. And so when we've had the chance to, you know, to redirect someone, I have been very impressed more often than not that when you say to someone, right now you're going left, just try turning 90 degrees and go in that direction instead, you know, they will do it. And you will end up having like, oh, look, they just needed somebody to tell them go this way. Um, so why why withhold that, you know? Are you good at firing people? I haven't had to do it yet because the show has been the distance between seasons has been so long that everyone was was uh not covered by span protection at that point. And like we just lost writers to to entropy, basically. Um but it's not something I would look forward to doing, but it's something that I if I have a weakness as a as a as a boss, I I I feel weird thinking myself as a boss, but I technically am. Um like I have I've had to learn more and more to uh have some more uncomfortable conversations than I than I naturally want to have. And I actually think that a lot of the cruelty in Hollywood is it is understood to come from narcissism and um and like ego and and misogyny and a lot of things that it absolutely does come from. But I think that there's a whole level that we don't talk about in Hollywood of the cruelty that comes from people who are trying to be kind, because they do not want to have the tough, honest conversation with someone that would actually be to the other person's benefit because they don't want to either say the wrong thing, they don't want to be the bad guy, they don't want to um have something bounce back on them, so they don't say anything, and they let people just walk off the cliff. And uh and it is in a way, if I think it is just as cool as as pushing someone off a cliff is just letting them walk towards a click, a cliff that is like if they keep doing exactly what they're doing right now, there's only one way this ends. Um and I think that I've had moments where I had that instinct where I was like, uh, see, they're they're going towards the cliff, and I mean, I don't want to have to say something. I don't want to like they don't they're so far gone that they don't even know that they're walking towards a cliff. Uh you know what I mean? Like they're just gonna yell at me. And then I had to just be like, no, that's you've seen that happen. You've seen you've seen the way that that cruelty like filters down through the system that no one wants to give anyone bad news, so you never hear no, which is so much more cruel than getting an immediate call that's like, listen, we think you're great, but it's not gonna work, it's not gonna happen. Um, you know, thanks for coming in. Good luck. You know, that that sounds like a more cruel conversation to people, but it's it's so much more thoughtful to just tell someone no than to let them twist in the wind. Um, and so when I felt myself have the instinct of letting that happen, I've yelled at myself because I'm like, you will not become the thing that you have been tortured by. So therefore, um your only choice is to have a tough conversation. And so I'm I'm getting better at that. Um, but it hasn't, I've had I've had in my head a firing conversation. It has not led to actually having to do it yet because the way the seasons have worked.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

I'm I'm always so grateful when somebody calls me to tell me it's a past and they call me personally every single time it's either it's a past or you know, God forbid I can let go from something. You know, the worst thing is silence, the second worst thing is hearing from your agent. The best thing is just a like a human human phone call. And often it leads to more work down the line. You weren't right for this, or we weren't connecting on this or bringing in another writer. You're greatest, they're greatest, you have a conversation four months later, you're working together again because that's how it's not work. I just find that like what you're saying brings out true to me, because people just think that the nice thing is and then people like they're become like little helicopters, right? Where they just whirl up in their own heads and just think faster, faster, faster, faster. And you can't perform at that level because you just don't know where you stand and you're thinking the worst, and and most likely the worst is true. I get the question um about you know delegating sort of these bigger tasks between you and your partner. And and when you have when you guys have a a no or a rejection or a path. So let's say it's a big one, let's say it's a pilot's not moving forward or something. Is there a process that you go through as a team to sort of like mitigate the damage or just be okay together? Um, because obviously, you know, if you're not with on a team, you have to do that by yourself.

SPEAKER_04 32:51

It's been um it's been something I've been grateful for in a lot of situations is to have another person there because you are going to go through a grieving process and to be able to go through that grieving process with another person, and you know, there is a um there is a a point early on where you kind of go through a lot of like, was it this, was it this, you know, where you're not necessarily having a productive version of how could we improve to to fix this the next time. You're having a kind of like a destructive conversation of that. Um and the it you know, it was a process for us to learn how to not do that and to either like let's figure out what we can fix and and then move on. Um and there were many times where we you know something didn't go the way we wanted, and um one of us was just kind of like, oh man, you know, maybe we really like when we they had that note and we didn't take that note because it seemed like it was gonna kill it. And then we, you know, it didn't go forward, and maybe we really should have taken that note. And as we got older, the other one would say, No, we were right. That it was a it's a bad note. And had it gone forward with that bad note, best case scenario is we would have came out with something bad that we wouldn't have been proud of anyway. And so it's like we got better at kind of picking each other up and moving on. Um, and you know, like that that first level of uh just having someone outside yourself to even just talk to about it is is good. The second level of having somebody to help diagnose what could we have done better is good. Um, and then that third level of fucking we're moving on, you know what I mean? Like let's just um we don't need that anyway. That like that it was we were taking that as a gig, and there's other gigs, but what about this other thing we're excited about? Let's just start writing that that thing instead. And you usually one of you kind of is a little quicker to like um get in the car and start the engine, and then the other was like, okay, I'll get in, I'll get in the car with you. Let's let's get out of here, let's move on. Um, so that you know it's it's been really useful to us uh over the years because we we've also noticed we have this interesting thing where when one of us is up, the other is almost always down. Like if we don't know what's happening, we have this natural balancing mechanism and we don't talk to each other about it. It's just one of us is like, this is not gonna happen. The other's like, really? It's funny. I I was thinking to I woke up today thinking it would happen. And we end up finding a place somewhere in the middle that's like, okay, well, maybe you're right, maybe I'm right. I guess we'll find out. Um, but having you know, the lows and the highs are so great, the lows are are are more frequent. Um, but you do want to mitigate both ends of it. You don't actually don't want the highs sometimes to be as high either, because the crash is only gonna be that much steeper when it happens. Um, having somebody to say, like, okay, great, we've sold this thing, we're excited, what's next? And to kind of keep your head focused on you know the road ahead of you, rather than like in dreams of what your life is now gonna be like you go into your head into a movie montage of uh trucks backing up with full of money, just dumping the money on your front lawn and you swimming in the money, and you know what I mean? Like, you don't want to go into that montage because it's never gonna be that. And so that it's it's both helpful to have someone help get you out of a hole, but also it when you climb up onto a mountain, you also sometimes need somebody to get you off that mountain and be like, let's get down here to where the oxygen is the right level for us to breathe. And you know, and so we both balance each other out, and that's been that's been very uh very healthy.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

So you've said that you don't like to see yourself as a bot, but you've actually shown that you're probably more thoughtful than quite a lot of the people that we've heard about in the industry in terms of how you think about junior staff and so on. Which is why I think uh you'll give a great answer to what is our final question, which is if you could give a single piece of advice to somebody thinking about coming into the industry, what would it be?

SPEAKER_04 37:09

That'd stop because there's so much. I mean, like it's I don't mean to filibuster it, but like there are there are so many different things depending on what your situation is. Um I know that the first the first advice that that really mattered to me because I was not coming from um money and I had no connections was like your money is your war chest and think about it accordingly. Like the amount of money you have is the amount of money you can stay in this fight. And so um a lot of people would come to LA and they would just go kind of nuts and they would um you know just kind of like they would try to live an LA lifestyle, but it's like you're all you're doing, all I'm seeing is like your burn rate is increasing, and you had three years of of that, you know, you could have gone at the rate you're going, and now you can go a year and a half, and now you can go a year, and you know what I mean, like and your money is your ability to make choices. A lot of people are like, no, I want to go and just focus on the writing, and it's like I think you're better off coming, getting a job that gives you freedom, and then writing on the side. Like you're gonna be doing multiple things when you're starting out, you're not gonna have time, you're not gonna just sit there and write. And also, that's just gonna put you completely in your head and you're gonna torture yourself. Um, so I guess that you know that that's the kind of like the practical financial version. I guess the other thing is you're building your community, your personal community. Um, and that means like finding a writer's group, finding people that are um that share common values with you and a common you know view of the world. And I think the mistake a lot of people make is they immediately reach out to like, oh, this person is uh has a show, I should give them my writing. But it's like you do not want that person to be reading your writing at this stage. You want your peers to be reading your writing and getting it better and better and better, and then you want a group, you know, a concentric ring outside of that, that's still not a boss to read it. And you know, someone who's just like a staff writer on the show. You know, it's like you want to be like building out in concentric circles. Um, and the final circle is giving it to someone who could hire you. Um, because if you give it to that person too early and your writing's not ready, you know, it is it is likely that you're not gonna get a read from that person again. Um, so the more, the more you can, you know, build your own community and people that you trust and that you're all kind of in the same boat with each other, and that boat will rise or fall, you know, together, and you'll all pull each other up is a much better way of thinking about making a career than I think people think of it as like a Willy Wonka golden ticket is going to arrive. And they're like, if I can just meet Willy Wonka, I can get that ticket. And it's like, no, no, no, that's not, you've got to be like an umpa lumpa. I don't know where this metaphor is going, but like I'm saying you want to get in with your group, and then you all move up together rather than think about it like a lottery ticket. Um, because it's not a lottery. It is a it's a career, it's just a career that's very, very difficult.

SPEAKER_03 40:22

And it it and I I want to just, you know, as we're gonna close close this out, I really want to comment on that because that's such an important thing for people to know, especially today more than ever, is that it's not a lottery, right? It's it's it used to be. It used to be you could write a spec script and you'd sell it for millions, and your career was off and running, and that was maybe the 80s and the 90s. And now that someone has made this great tweet where now you write the great script that might get you another job to write something at scale. So I so that that whole thing that whole thing is over. And another thing that I really love that you said um was the comment that like here you are, you've you've you've created a show, you're a showrunner, and a couple of times you've mentioned that the financial stress. I mean, that it never ends. That it's the idea that no matter where you are in your career, it's the idea that you're totally secure, it's got like like for all time, it's it's kind of a myth. And that people should really know um that you're never gonna get fired from Hollywood. The only way you're going to leave this job is is this world is when you run out of money, right? So, so be prudent about that.

SPEAKER_04 41:29

Yeah, well, you're you're you only know your career was over in retrospect. You know what I mean? You'll only know that, oh, they had stopped calling two years ago. And I guess this is it. Um, you're that there's gonna be no sign that's gonna, you know, you don't really get canceled. You know what I mean? Like it would be it would be great if you did get canceled in some way, because at least you'd know, okay, take the money, amount of money you have right now and save and go get a new job. Because what most people do is they keep living like they're gonna make that money forever, and then they find out in a few years, no, they they they've moved on from you for some reason. Um, and it's you know, you've now gone through all of your savings.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

Yeah, maybe maybe the time that your career is over is rather than spending your time writing, you spend your time hosting a podcast about writing. So on that note, Matthew Fetterman. Thank you very much for your insights.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

All right, that's a wrap on this episode 515.